A scruffier kind of charisma

HUMPHREY Bogart may have been the star of 1941’s “The Maltese Falcon” and 1942’s “Casablanca,” but those classic films wouldn’t have had their enduring appeal without iconoclastic character actors such as Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr., Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Leonid Kinskey and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall.

“With so many of these character actors, it’s a sort of shorthand of getting you into a film quickly,” says Rick Jewell, professor at the USC School of Cinema-Television.

“When you encounter these people in the films, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on exposition. You know what these characters are like, even though they are not exactly playing the same individual from film to film, because their personality is so strong. When they bring that personality to the film, they can establish a character in a blink of an eye.”

“Round Up the Usual Suspects! Celebrating Hollywood’s Classic Character Actors,” presented by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, pays homage to these actors and actresses who were as important to the success of a film as the glamorous stars of Hollywood’s heyday.

The festival begins Friday at the James Bridges Theater with a rare nitrate print of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 masterwork, “Trouble in Paradise,” which features such venerable character actors as Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton and C. Aubrey Smith. Also on the bill is Howard Hawks’ rapid-fire 1940 comedy, “His Girl Friday,” which spotlights a rogue’s gallery of supporting players including Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, Ernest Truex, Roscoe Karns and Cliff Edwards.

Jewell says the 1930s and ‘40s produced an abundance of evocative character players because “Hollywood needed them desperately. They made so many films back then. When you are turning out 50 or more feature films every year, you have to have a large stock company of go-to actors who have the range to do all kinds of things for you.”

“Character actors were such a crucial part of classical Hollywood cinema,” adds UCLA programmer David Pendleton. “We thought about calling these series ‘Scene Stealers.’ We were looking for precisely those films where the character actor is crucial to the success of the film and whom you can’t wait to see again.”

Jewell notes that going to these movies was almost like having a family get-together, “in the sense that you knew these people and you looked forward to seeing them again. They are like your eccentric aunt and uncle -- wonderful storytellers, wonderful character people in the sense of not just being character actors. They had character.”

Several of these actors won Oscars, including the blustery Charles Coburn, who picked up the best supporting Oscar for 1943’s “The More the Merrier.” Alice Brady, who was best known for her ditzy roles in such comedies as 1936’s “My Man Godfrey,” won best supporting actress for a rare dramatic turn in 1937’s “In Old Chicago.”

Stars would run out of favor with audiences as they got older, but character actors’ careers lasted for decades -- Ruggles, Spring Byington, Horton, William Demarest and Bond are among those who became TV stars in the 1950s.

“In one sense they were limited,” Jewell says. “They could never play the star parts. But in another sense, it freed them to do all kinds of different things that stars would be afraid of.”

Not only did character actors often have a unique look -- who could forget Lorre’s saucer-sized eyes -- their voices were often more curious than their appearances.

Lorre, Kinskey, Sakall and Misha Auer, among others, had distinct European accents; Brady’s voice had a recognizable quiver; Eugene Pallette sounded like a foghorn; and Walter Brennan had a folksy twang.

“With the coming of the sound era, the studios were looking for actors who made an instant impression,” Pendleton says. “That happened vocally as well as visually. “

Directors such as Hawks, Lubitsch, Preston Sturges, John Ford and Frank Capra loved to work with these actors, which had a definite payoff.

“You were under contract all the time,” Jewell says. “The studios felt compelled to use you.”

He points out that Bond made 25 films in 1935 and 18 in 1939. “Now you know he doesn’t have the big roles in these pictures, but nonetheless ... it’s extraordinary.”

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‘Round Up the Usual Suspects!’

Where: James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA

When: Friday to June 7

Price: $5 to $7

Contact: (310) 206-FILM or go to www.cinema.ucla.edu

Schedule

Friday: “Trouble in Paradise,” “His Girl Friday,” 7:30 p.m.

Saturday: “The Maltese Falcon,” “Another Thin Man,” 7:30 p.m.

Next Sunday: “The Gay Divorcee,” “Top Hat,” 7 p.m.

May 26: “The Devil and Miss Jones,” “Destry Rides Again,” 7:30 p.m.

May 27: “Casablanca,” “Christmas in Connecticut,” 7:30 p.m.

May 31: “You Can’t Take It With You,” “My Man Godfrey,” 7:30 p.m.

June 7: “Ball of Fire,” “The Palm Beach Story,” 7:30 p.m.